I live in Ohio and don't get what I hear about the city of Springfield. I hear they have a Republican

[doc03]

mayor so it must be a fairly red area. The population is currently about 58000. I assume the population has
increased a lot recently since they reportedly have 15-20000 Haitian immigrants. I hear they had a shortage of workers, so they asked for the 15-20000 Haitians. I don't understand how a city that small could need that many new workers. Is there some kind of huge industry moving there? Knowing how prejudiced people are in Eastern Ohio I can't imagine a city in this area voluntarily taking in 10 Haitians let alone 20,000. Apparently, the people of Springfield must be far different than the rest of the state.

[brewens]

1. I've spent some time around Ephrata in eastern Washington state. That is a right-wing shithole. Every other

guy I met was an alcohol junkie, pill head or tweaker. Several years ago, I thought to myself it's no wonder they don't have any jobs coming in, how would anyone think they could get any kind of decent workforce.

[viva la]

2. I read that the 20K is an exaggeration. There's less than 60K total pop in the city.

The city has had a dramatic loss of population since 2010, and employers needed more workers to make up for it.
There are a few thousand Caribbean-area immigrants, but not all are Haitians.

[doc03]

5. I am skeptical of what any of the media says Fox, NYT, or MSNBC. If there is a hurricane

they will show the one particular building hit the worst. They characterize an AR15 as some kind of
super weapon that totally turns anything it hits into mush. They say Trump was shot in the head when
it is doubtful he was even hit in the ear. They call the recent incident at Mara Lardo an attempted assassination
when he never was in the line of sight of Trump and never fired a shot. You don't know how much of
what we hear about Springfield is truth or fiction.

[viva la]

10. Yeah, in fact, this is what immigration is good for

An old city has lost a lot of its population, with young people and families moving away. There's a lack of workers.
Immigration has always been a solution for this.

[Omnipresent]

3. They are going to have a rat problem if immigrants keep eating all those cats!

[getagrip_already]

8. If they were killing rats....

The magats would complain they are starving cats and dogs!

[lees1975]

4. It was an economic revival and a manufacturing boom that caused the need for more workers.

There was a large manufacturing plant there, formerly farm equipment, I believe, which closed down and laid off a lot of workers, along with other manufacturing plants. A Japanese investor bought the plant, converted it to make auto parts, I think, not sure about what they produce, but there were not enough workers in the area to fill all of the jobs, so they brought in the Haitians, who were willing to work for what I heard quoted was $19 an hour. That, in turn, began to re-populate the town and revitalize its tax base and its economy. It also encouraged other small manufacturers to locate there, where empty facilities offered low cost to manufacturers and a job boom was on.

It flies in the face of Trump-Vance claims about Biden's economic policy, which has created more manufacturing jobs in the United States in four years than we've seen literally in decades. It also flies in the face of "they're taking jobs from American workers." American workers were sought, and offered the jobs first. They just couldn't find enough.

[doc03]

7. Thanks for the explanation for the need for workers. Apparently, the people of

people of Springfield are far more liberal than this area. People in eastern Ohio are suspicious
of anyone even from out of state. People here complain that nobody wants to work but God forbid someone
from another country fills the job.

[lees1975]

11. I don't know that the people of Springfield were all that welcoming. But apparently there are more there who are.

I used to live in Western Pennsylvania, about 15 miles from the state line. I would go over to Steubenville on Friday nights, my cousin's son played football for Big Red. There are some places over there, like East Liverpool, Toronto, and even Steubenville that are depressed, and downright run down because they were dependent on steel mills and manufacturing. About 20 years ago, the union at Weirton Steel in West Virginia, just across the river, bought the steel mill, made it competitive and saved about 10,000 jobs. Then Republican politics got in the way, and they got bought out by a foreign competitor who shut them down. There's no one to work those jobs anymore, they've all either retired or moved. And there are a lot of people in that area who are very uneducated, and easy prey for conspiracy theorists.

[Ocelot II]

6. A whole lot of info here:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/14/neo-nazis-springfield-ohio-haitian-immigrants

and here (no paywall): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/14/us/haitian-migrants-springfield-ohio.html?unlocked_article_code=1.LU4.A2VU.ehHSw8RQ0Ps7&smid=url-share

The short answer is that Springfield desperately needed workers; Haitians came because there was work for them and employers welcomed them.

[Buckeyeblue]

9. I grew up in Springfield but left in the early 90's

Growing up the population was around 80k. International Harvester, which became Navastar was a the biggest employer. Workers at Navastar belonged to the UAW. But as Navastar was bought and sold by different groups, the overall number of employees in Springfield has plummeted.

Springfield is in a great location. It's right on I-70, between Dayton and Columbus. 30 minutes to Dayton. 45 to Columbus. 90 to Cincinnati. But the city has never had great leadership. Has been reluctant to change in ways that would allow it to grow. Most of the people I grew up with who went to college never moved back.